Special Board of Education Meeting - November 18, 2021

001[Music] yes all right i would like to call this special meeting of the board of education to order so good evening um jill will take notes as secretary of sarah's not um here this evening and tara is not able to tear worms not able to make it also so um real quick thank you all for coming as a district and a community um we have work to do around diversity inclusion homophobia anti-semitism religious intolerance bullying and all those words that come to mind when we talk about this the work is started and tonight we will learn more about the good work that is started and as a community we will work together to look at the work that needs to be done i've spoken i was at the high school last night spoken to a

002bunch of students and some teachers and heard really good things about the conversations that have already started from a conversation and information garnering um round table discussion so so far what i've heard from some students has been very positive we look for experts organizations advisors consultants and yes students parents teachers administrations in this board to guide us in this work what we need to keep in mind is that this is our work based on our community values around education and these difficult but important topics while we may look for help from the outside which we will discuss tonight to jump to the conclusion that whoever we work with individuals or organizations that they get to insert promote educate or change our values throughout the process in terms of what we want to accomplish for the

003district and the community is wrong and that's not how this works we are in control people and organizations will help us with structure scaffolding process and guide us toward a project process and program that fits our values thoughts and ideas around these topics as a district and as a community we're here tonight to listen learn and ask the questions we need to keep this important work moving forward and we will do it together so thank you and we'll turn it over to dr adley i will move to public comment michelle we'll start with our friends that are in the audience yeah sure just from a public no please come up thank you um the speaker tonight ken has a hard stop at six um so we'll welcome public comment in person and zoom but i

004just like to keep that in mind and then we'll have public comment at the end of the meeting also so thank you please please go ahead is that is that um microphone hold on or we might have to have you speak louder good evening you can bend that down that's good maybe that'll help thank you can you hear me now yes yes thank you let's start good evening melissa of lackey valley handwritten tonight we will be receiving an introduction from consultant ken shelton who's been engaged by the district to help fix our schools in darien my understanding is he will be working directly with our children as well as helping to develop the plan that will guide the future of darian public school system it is important for everyone to be aware of a few

005things before he presents to the wider darien community like what is his experience making him qualified for this role and what is his overall platform or core values on the education system as a whole i was alarmed to hear he's already met with some children and conducted an informal assessment with a small selected group before he was presented to the darien community parents and taxpayers again decisions were being made without transparency and another example of a huge revision to our education system put in place by a small group of people and the administration in the aoe at the end of the day mr shelton's so focused sole focus seems to be to dismantle one of the top school districts in the country so i have a few questions in mind as i listen tonight what

006is the exact nature of his presence and guidance in our school's community and especially with the strategic plan implementation and why do we need to fundamentally transform a school system that is ranked number one in many areas across the state and nation is this in the name of equity parents really need insight into this as it could change the whole dynamic of darien as a town and the reason for why so many people move here one point to take away from mr shelton's own writings and teaching is he believes in eliminating all rating systems within schools and he states i quote grading is implicitly rooted in racism anti-blackness sexism transphobia and ableism end quote this is a very radical view and i'm not sure how academics suddenly became the rotten core for labeling stereotypes and

007racism this paints all schools as inherently being racism racist some of the top performing students in this nation are from a nigerian indian and chinese descent i urge you all to research his works as he is an outside consultant engaged to interject his narrative into darien how does this help children understand each other better and process emotions to become more mindful accepting humans with no traditional grading system how do we hold children accountable in school and life there needs to be some benchmark and assessment across the board this is the real world the unfair world we need to learn to navigate the corporate and working world where we all get meets expectations on our performance reviews and paid less as a female executive than a male so again why are we dismantling one of the

008top education systems with unproven radical methods the introduction of mr shelton is quite frightening and drastic he brings to the table a fringe view that only represents an extremely small group in darien thank you all for being transparent tonight and thank you for allowing us time to see him do mr shelton's rolandarian be well thank you thank you for your comments anyone else from the audience good evening john dunn 175 raymond before the special meeting begins all of us need to be aware of the controversial and divisive writings and beliefs of consultant ken shelton raiding is capitalist racist and exploited that is the title of the four-part essay mr sheldon published earlier this year let me repeat that grading is capitalist racist and exploited i would strongly encourage everyone to read it now some might

009be asking themselves after the sad and disappointing incidents at dhs and middlesex what does grading have to do with the very reason this consultant was found and hired by superintendent adley and assistant superintendent tramberg in response let me quote mr schoen's article quote grading is implicitly rooted in racism anti-blackness sexism transphobia and ableism mental intellectual physical end quote he also says in fact any discussion about equity design social and emotional learning or any other program that does not include grading in the conversation it's irresponsible and harmful to many students do superintendent adley and assistant superintendent tramberg believe this as well are they supportive of drastic changes to darian public schools grading system as part of their embrace of dei and scl agendas and training and what about our elected board members where do you stand

010on this at the october 26 board meeting we heard from many parents who voiced their concerns about what was happening in nearby school districts in the name of equity gifted programs terminated ap classes cancelled midterms and finals removed from the curriculum many of us asked what's in store for our wonderful darien schools in response superintendent adley and assistant superintendent tramberg have now hired a vocal advocate of abolishing traditional grading in the classroom let's just add this to the ever-growing list of tone-deaf responses from this administration how does any of this benefit our children and how does the concept of eliminating rating help them get into the colleges of their choice or prepare for the real world i should also point out that the week after that ferry meeting darien residents went to the polls and

011from the first selectmen to the board of ed and other down ballot positions through constituents resoundingly made their voices heard this isn't the path the town wants to take as we hear from other concerned parents we need to keep asking does this administration as well as our elected board support these polarizing controversial and unproven views if the answer is no and i strongly believe it should be we need to terminate our relationship with mr sheldon to find a more inclusive consultant that is reflective of darien's values thank you thank you mr dunn anyone else from the audience sure please come up hi i'm krista karns i don't have anything really written i'm just going to respond i wasn't sure just your your name and address sure kristen carnes 45th avenue um i just want to

012say that we haven't met ken shelton yet so i think we all need to just listen to what he has to say um he might have written papers on grading and if you work in education i happen to work in a school i'm not an educator but assessment and making sure that our kids learn is what we need them to do and sometimes grading systems don't always treat all the kids the same again we need to give tools and techniques and pathways for success for all of our students because they may not all want to get into the college of you know your choice but they want to get onto a path of success so they can find a fulfilling life we have to listen to him and one of the core tenets of diversity

013equity and inclusion is not jumping to conclusions before you have all the information and i would argue that that's what some people are already doing without even listening so i would hope i can might comment later but that's my thoughts on that thanks thank you thank you for your comments anyone else from the audience sure please step up i'm natasha thomas i live at 6 mclaren road south i have not had the time to listen to or read all of mr shelton's papers or youtube videos but i've heard of some associations with with groups that do are pro-crt and do have pretty radical views on education changing education and therefore i'd like to ask the board my concern is that it's a slippery slope to re-engage i know that we've already engaged mr shelton in

014some work but tonight i think we're making a decision on a very specific scope of work um that i have here to have him continue on with the district and it looks like it's just you know 15 or something like that no on-site visits and remote visits as well my concern is that once you really start something in in progress you may not you may not stop it because you've already and then you'd have to reinvent the wheel and begin anew so i think that it's important to take a look um you know at any consultant that we hire particularly the consultant that we're looking at tonight and make sure that their values actually do align with the district values i understand mr dean your comments that we're still going to be in the driver's

015seat but there is a slippery slope here when you bring somebody in who is an expert to drive a particular you know initiative that you know is in our strategic plan i just don't want to get too far down the road with somebody who we later decide may not be best suited for the role so um you know it's just like it's like doing a construction project you bring somebody in and you get to a certain point you're like well do i get rid of them and hire you know start this all over again or is that going to be more you know objective for me so i just want us to really think about that before we spend another 50 something thousand dollars you know in this year's budget and then move on because

016the strategic plan is one three five years and then into perpetuity so we're not done here we're just beginning to engage people so the people that we engage really need to be the right people thank you thank you for your comments mr chairman we're down to 45 minutes tell them the audience how many hands do we have online michelle all right let's take that one real quickly mr reasonable hi teresa vote 22 circle road um i'm glad the district is finally doing something about diversity equity including and inclusion because we are preparing for them for the real world i have a child in college every year she has to do a diversity equity and inclusion um discussion it's something that they're all required to listen to it's like a three hour thing that they're all

017required to listen to my husband was required to do dei training for his job this is the real world we are preparing our children for the real world let's listen to what mr shelton has to say thank you thank you all right dr adley i will turn it over to you now we have public comment at the end of the meeting also thank you good afternoon or good evening everyone it's nice to see you here thank you for coming in person and online and i'd like to welcome ken sheldon and if you could get ken up i would appreciate that just a couple of things in terms of uh it is correct to say that uh ken has been here ken was here and did professional development for staff last year uh and he was

018here working with professional development with staff uh this year and also work with groups of kids at the middle school and high school uh i will say in cerner and suggestion that we retain his services uh that is one that uh one characteristic that i would point to in that that he was actually has been well received by a staff over two years and uh the students groups were he was also received well by those two uh student groups it'd be quite easy not to be well received by those groups and if that was the case i don't think it would be bringing a recommendation forward uh in looking at all our options both to continue the work that we have in the strategic plan and also be responsive to um some of the issues

019that we've been dealing with off and on honestly over a period of a couple of years uh we looked at a number of organizations and a number of programs and resources i'll list just a couple for you just quick back ride the adl nccj challenge day interaction institute for social change in boston craic and ces as our rescue organizations programs from nyu programs from uconn and then dialogue with tri-state administrators ultimately we interviewed a couple of organizations that was adl nccj uh an institute for social change and i can and uh while it wasn't set out intentionally honestly to do select one person to do all of the activities uh that is the way it sort of turned out uh through the interview i say call it interview but uh discussion with administrators and the

020various organizations this is where we landed and i'm pleased that we did land on this um uh i'll cause that we call a solution but but this partnership uh that uh continued partnership so a couple of other reasons just before we get ken gets introduced one yes he is a consultant and with such he's not bringing a particular program to the table uh the program the responses will be personalized to darien and to what our staff and our community our parents and our board uh ways to see he's an educator first foremost and that might not seem much but it is to teachers i can assure you that he spent years in middle school and also with our students and that's also a big connection he has worked with schools organizations and different corporations he

021also can work closely with different constituents students staff members parents athletes different groups he has all those experiences he does provide or anybody under the scenario would provide continuity and coherence or programmers so i think that that's that's one of the advantages of certainly in this case just the way it played out of having one person to work with our different constituents he does bring a diverse experience based on his own life experiences uh so i think you'll hear that this evening some of those things that will come out and i think that darien is is a place that's complex sometimes right um has high standards high expectations i think he can meet almost and would work very well uh with all of our constituents so with that um i don't i see ken right

022there i will introduce can uh ken is calling in this evening actually i think he's from baltimore this evening he's doing a keynote uh at uh i believe 6 30 sharp uh with that again i want to thank you and welcome you to the board and i'll turn over for you if you would like to say some introductory comment or two just to get us up and going and then uh with the board's your permission i would open it up for for discussions or anything else about the plan that the board may wish to so mr chairman a point of order what are we doing tonight and i sent this in an email a few days ago because this is warned as a discussion correct yes it's not an interview i hear the community thinks

023that we're doing something tonight and there's no vote warrant for tonight so what is the goal for this meeting so that we know how to engage with mr shelton and i would have appreciated an answer prior so i think the whole board could have kind of known what our goals and so in order to move forward obviously the board has to approve funding through the budget process for this year so this was an opportunity to literally meet ken have a discussion with ken uh reason the issues that the board may want to address or have a sense of a greater sense of particular topics around it so that when a proposal is made to come forward with a budget uh a modification or adjustment uh you'd be in a position to make a judgment on

024that so this is an interview in public essentially yes i think i think i think a discussion in an interview that's fine i won't say that but it's well neither is it go ahead uh kenny are you there yes can you confirm that you all can hear me we can and i yeah on the screen thank you ken thank you um so i guess i'd start off by saying that it's both a privilege and a pleasure to virtually meet all of you so i appreciate the opportunity to spend time with both the board and members of the community and i also want to thank the members of the community for sharing uh their thoughts that preceded my time being here on on with all of you so um i'd love for us to be able

025to explore and examine um what we're doing together as well as any additional questions or even concerns that you all may have around the work prior to our discussion i think it's important for me to share with the board and the community that my my goal and all the work that i do is largely framed around my experiences as an educator as dr adley shared i taught in la unified school district for uh over 18 years and i've had the privilege of working with four of the top six largest districts in the country as well as a myriad of other districts that in some cases are very similar in size and demographic scope as they're in public schools and so my my primary focus is on which one of the community members brought it up

026and i'm in full agreement is to mold what my expertise and experiences are within the context of the culture of the community the strategic plan and the second goals that are outlined in the strategic plan as well so basically i and i know the concerns because i've heard them and i i actually agree with them it is not it's not a situation where an outsider is coming in and telling you how to do it because one of the media members mentioned the strategic plan one three and five years if an outsider comes in and tells you how to do it and tells you what to do then that's not sustainable and the whole goal here is for sustainability because on i because it just has to be sustainable that's how that's how i measure success

027is sustainable thank you very much um i will open it up to board questions and um this is mccammon hi mr shelton my name is jill mccammon um just to speak clearly um i'd like to start where you just left off um i know you have a background in in technology education and a lot you've done a lot of work in in education in general and you talked about sustainability and you know sort of uh succeeding how are you going to measure success when you leave us and darion what does sustainability mean to you in terms of something that we can really get our hands around yeah and thank you for asking that question sustainability to me with all of you is all of the following is that we've seen the growth in this the

028certificate and classified staff the educators at both the high school and the middle school have recognized areas of personal growth as well as what i would say organizational growth to where they ensure that ultimately uh the the easiest and most simplistic way i describe it is if you are if you all were to conduct an exit interview of every single child that goes through the entire school system when they turn 18 the goal for me and the work that we would be doing together uh would be that they would simply say i felt seen i was hurt i was loved and i realized my full potential right now and that's really all it boils down to i don't i don't measure anything based on any uh specifically any numerical values or anything like that because

029ultimately every child in their own family has their own goals and the whole idea is that education has put you in a position to realize your full potential by the time you leave the district so that would be one way to measure the sustainability is how do we look at and examine the internal processes as well as the hearts and minds uh and how do we mold an awareness as well as a um sustainable actions behind that awareness that are not only aligned with the strategic plan but also again distilling it down to those simple three areas every child to be seen heard and loved mr shelton could you i think it would help the conversation and and the public that's participating um you know a bunch of 12th graders that i spoke to the

030other night a couple of teachers um they were complimentary of the discussions that you've been having could you give a little background on those discussions the topic some of the learnings that you've gotten out of that and how that fits into the overall process yes and thank you for asking that question the discussions were around around norm setting as well as what i call from an asset and an empathetic and attentive listening approach so the whole idea around all of this work and really even when you think in terms of conversations that are usually identified as uncomfortable or difficult i i tend to encourage shifting those descriptors to necessary um is the first step is what kind of a listener are you are you listening to learn and grow or are you listening to respond

031number one and then number two what i the privilege i had of spending time with the staff at both the high school and middle school as well as the students was identifying what what gifts you bring to the discussion so even in the context of all of us right now if we were to have gone through that process together which by the way i would i would certainly welcome the board's precedence uh at any workshop i lead is is recognizing that all of us are unique individuals we have unique experiences we have unique perspectives and having that uniqueness in the context of a conversation of which we all have identified a commonality around our purpose and our goals that's how you start to look at what gifts you bring to the discussion and that way

032you ensure and that that's kind of aligned with my stance on equity is recognizing the gifts that every individual has and how that supports the collective growth so essentially if everybody has a voice then how do we ensure that not only every voice is heard but that voice is affirmed and it's uh specifically identified as a value to the growth of the group as a collective thank you mr shelton mrs achman hi mr shelton thank you for joining us tonight um can you talk a little bit about what districts you've done this work in or completed these kind of audits in and then maybe how the end result or the end product was tailored to those communities right i've watched a lot of your videos so obviously la school district might have different concerns or

033need than a chicago school district that might have different concerns or needs so can you talk about where you've done this and maybe generally as long as it's not compromising anyone's confidentiality kind of how things were different based on the needs you saw or the needs the community brought forward yes and thank you for asking that question i i think ultimately the my approach is always a following and i like to use the identifier as operating and thought partnership so one is the ability that i've had to review the strategic plan uh as well as um the meetings that i've had with dr adley and with uh with uh mr tranberg as well around getting a deeper understanding of not only what you all have said as far as policy in the history but also

034what is the culture at each of the school sites within each of the classrooms and this is why i met with the staff at the middle school high school and then a select student group so in terms of other comparable i would say in size demographic scope districts as yours the first step is to get a deeper understanding of the culture of the district no matter what and just to your point um my work in l.a unified is very different because unified is massive same thing with chicago public schools and broward county public schools and so my approach is usually around all of the following so if it's a smaller district like yours i have more opportunities to have direct communications with um in some cases cabinet or in this case with assist the superintendent

035assistant superintendent and then even in terms of that it's send me all the materials around again the strategic plan any recent board meetings any different policies that have been adopted what are the different programs that are in place for the students how are students enrolled in these programs what are the breakdown demographics around gender around class around race around any one of those things how are they distributed across all of the particular programs uh what percentage so if you think in terms of high school i even look at uh especially in california because that's easy data for me to access what percentage of students graduate as what's called uc eligible which means of the university of california system they've completed all of their their minimum level requirements to be eligible for that so what does

036that look like um if they if a student graduates they aren't in that position what other options do they have so it gives me it gives me a real comprehensive picture of what the culture of the district is and what the culture and the values of the community are as they're aligned with the district and then i take that and then i mold that within things like the conversations i had the privilege of having uh earlier this month so again it's it's it's a way of saying i'm not coming here to tell you i have an experience and an expertise and i want to learn more about what your culture and your values are and how does that fit within what my expertise is so that going back to what i shared earlier so that

037we as a as thought partners can ensure sustainability and work okay and i i'm sorry this is a weird form to be interviewing and asking for references but what school districts would we look at where this work has been completed it's quite a few um i mean i could start off with several districts in northern california union school district um again i know there's limited time so if you could provide that to the super we could look at it that's what i mean it's a little awkward of a setting so if we could just see it as just kind of examples of what the results of a dei kind of work was because this is a new venture for darien thank you yeah not a problem at all thank you mr zachman mr ceni first

038my name is john cena and thanks again for your time and i do welcome the transparency that this venue is offering because you did hear some concerns from the community um i had the opportunity to watch your uh let's talk bias interview with um tyraxin i think and it was an hour long interview and you gave some great perspectives of your life experiences and how you would address dei in many cases and one of the most important elements i took away from it was the importance of understanding others perspective and creating these cross-cultural connections through this so maybe taking mrs ochman's question but also tilting it a bit too you heard the concerns from a number of community members uh i've definitely heard the concerns directly from community members over these last few days based

039on some of the writings that you had even in that interview called capitalism a ponzi scheme you question class rank and um you know called meritocracy a myth and i don't mean to attack you with those but give you the opportunity to kind of navigate through some of those thoughts how it differs from the culture i think of this community and how you would navigate that into a very productive relationship with this district yes perfect thank you for taking the time to watch that video i think it's important to share uh with all of you that if you if you look at what i've written and even as you share what i've shared in the video that's all largely based on my lived experience as uh as a black male student as a black male

040educator so um i'll give you all an example it's a story i share in one of my talks the class rank so i come from a family of educators i actually happen to be the fourth um fourth generation of college uh graduate from college in my family which is already a significant accomplishment if you think about the fact that i'm 51 years old and so i remember in high school for example my ap english class where i knew that i was fortunate to play athletics as well so i knew i kind of had that but my father had always essentially instilled a value in both myself my younger brother that he demands excellence both on the athletic field as well as in the classroom and so for example with my ap english teacher i remember

041that she wanted us to collaborate with our classmates and i just asked a simple question if i collaborate with one of my classmates it's going to end up ranked higher than me then wouldn't it be in my best interest to sabotage their work so it affects their grade so i improve in rank and my whole idea even around sha and of course she said no it doesn't work that way but my whole point the whole idea and sharing that story is i believe that all learning environments should be cooperative not competitive there are as a community member shared there are plenty of things in life that are competitive but even my approach when i with my students was the whole idea was if we're running a race together our goal is so that everyone finishes

042crosses the finish line not who crosses the finish line first ultimately as you get older and i said we'll say to myself as you get older you get closer to the time when you finish high school you're going to kind of figure out what your first next path is going to be for some it was college for some it was uh career and technical education and for others it was going to work and in the family business my whole thing was what am i doing to ensure your wellness and your empowerment and how are we doing it together because ultimately even in the context of our dialogue here which i've shared this with dr adley on numerous times this is why i love the phrase thought partnership ultimately we are able to accomplish far more

043if we work together in that process and the whole point around the diversity and inclusion is you do have to have it's uh uh perspectives that aren't aligned with yours because otherwise you have an echo chamber and all you're going to do is recycle doing the exact same thing and this is where i this is part of what i shared in the video when i even shared with the staff around the first step is to actually listen and to be able to recognize that all of us have different lived experiences and we don't the last thing you want to do is discredit or dismiss a lived experience of another person we want to get a better understanding of that and then now identify what are the common outcomes that we have in our experiences based

044on our common purpose or goal thank you very much thank you hi mr shelton my name is julie best thanks for being with us this evening i'm sort of following up on what you were talking about just then would it be possible for you to share with us some of what you heard when you met with students from darian recently or if that's to identifying on a broader sense some of the kinds of things that you learn from students when you start this work yes i can share in general sense for sure um i got the sense which happens pretty much all the time the students want to be able to engage in the dialogue they want to be able to be in a position to be supported in understanding uh the processing of the

045information that they're consuming the information that they're learning they want to be in a position to be able to get a better understanding of things that are going on both in their world and outside um the screen froze can you all hear me still yes we can yes oh okay good okay um so basically the in the whole context with the students and especially the high school students what i was hearing from the students were the all of the following things we want to be able to talk more about social issues we want to be able to get a better understanding of of how that fits into the context of what we're learning and then the big one with them was we want to make sure that when we want to share what we're thinking

046that the adults are actually listening mrs mccammon mr shelton in our strategic plan we have a number of values as you know um and one of the things i think we hear from the community is the concern that our focus on excellence and innovation could be compromised if we um focus too much on trying to pull every if there's a feeling that we could be trying to pull everybody back instead of lifting everyone up and the the concerns i think about grades speak directly to this can you please talk about how we as a community can maintain a culture of excellence it's the reason a lot of people academic excellence love the reason a lot of people choose to live here because they believe in the schools can you please address that concern directly yes

047absolutely um ultimately my my approach is a rising tide lifts all boats and so i'm in full agreement you don't you don't pull things back you uplift and if you think in terms of a phrase that i i like to use and i've done a lot of research around targeted universalism so i'll give you all a prime example of what that looked like when i was in the classroom i had students that were performing at a very very high level and i had other students that were not so i requested resources and supports for the students that needed that additional help to uplift where their performance was but those resources and support were still available for the high performing students as well so you see the whole idea is to uplift the entire group not

048to pull back any of the high performers and i i would i would contend that first of all excellence and innovation any one of the words that we use that we would identify we want all of our children to be able to experience uh in their entire school school years if you will um that should be at the core of everything that we do how are we ensuring that we want to know how the resources are distributed for supports for all the students how are we measuring those supports uh and how is that you how is that uh operationalized within the context of the classroom or even within an entire school so to basically in a nutshell they answer your question i i don't believe in pulling back from anybody you don't this is not

049a zero-sum game you don't take from you add two this is ackman so it seems to me being um involved in education for a long time now at this level that we used to have this conversation around special education right and we've gotten to a point now where we understand that special education need different children who who are in the special education program need different supports in order to be able to achieve but dei and i imagine you've found this in other districts seems to have a push back can you explain why you think or how you have helped communities get more comfortable with this idea that dei is lifting everyone up and not pulling people back yes i'm glad you're asking that question the first step is to be able to engage with the

050community in conversations not unlike what we're doing now although my preference could have been for us to be able to do this in person and to be able to get a better understanding of of even our own experiences uh going through working our way through different educational systems whether you are a public system or a parochial system um and so then when you understand the whole idea around and look i get it with parents who have children in the community and in the schools you don't want something taken away from your child to be given to another child and this is precisely why my approach is the rising tide lifts off votes and so for example using what you just shared even when i was in a classroom i had students that had ieps and

051that had special education services they should not be denied access to the same core curriculum and learning experience that the high performing students were afforded the whole idea was provide the resources now that resources not only available for those students but there might be the opportunity for another student to be able to engage in whether it's a human human resource to any other type of resource because ultimately i i think there's always room for growth no matter how excellent you are and to be honest with you all one of the analogies i used to use with my students because i as i shared earlier i did have the fortunate privilege of playing college football but i said even even the best players we still practice there's still always room for growth and what you want

052to do is make sure that you are providing the resource supports to um operationalize and fulfill that growth so in the end i i again my approach is never to um take away from one and give to another or to isolate an individual group and say only this group uh gets the supports the whole idea is if you so you support and uplift the community as a whole mr brown ken thanks for joining us tonight uh my name is dave brown one of the board members couple questions um in listening to the conversation here tonight you mentioned that you want each student to be loved seen and heard as they go through as an individual but later on you were talking about doing some sort of inventorying i think one of the criteria group criteria

053you mentioned was class i'm not sure what that is but what's the purpose of inventorying individuals by group how does that promote their individualness oh you mean targeted universalism i guess i it was a context about coming in some of the audit work and some of the inventory you would have to do and look at the district to figure out how to mold or sort of craft and customize the program moving forward oh yeah so okay so now i understand yeah i mean ultimately that again that's that's me being mindful of and respectful of the culture and the values of durian public schools as well as the community at large um where i'm not i just i don't believe in me going in and telling you what to do that's not how i operate and

054that's not sustainable and and quite frankly that that is um that is very myopic in perspective and so the whole idea is again taking what i know and the supports that i'm providing as thought partners with dr adley among others and saying okay here's what you haven't and i would actually even argue one of the conversations that we had is the fact that because i don't live in the community i am coming in with a different perspective a different lens and i may see some things that um that you all may not see or i may see some things that you do see and just simply affirm what you're doing the whole idea is is again is is what is our universal approach uh aligned with what you have outlined in the strategic plan as

055well as those seven core goals and and and and so when you do that do it in that capacity again no one no one voice takes on a higher um value or importance than another and it's just the whole idea is that in the end by the time everything is all said and done it's we are all a better version of ourselves and our children are getting a better learning experience as a result of the time that we spent together and the work that we did together thank you um two other questions i have not read the article it was mentioned earlier today i wanted to hear from you first but would you care to speak to grading your thoughts on that for the community while we have you here yeah so uh sure now

056keep in mind my work is not specific to grading um but i do i would i would encourage you all to feel free to read it um read part one which i frame what i co-wrote it with a friend of mine i frame my own experiences uh as a learner and as an educator within our current grading system that i i will even share with you all one example um so when i taught it took me probably until my probably my fifth year to start to realize that for example that the 100 point scale is not equitable if you really think about it 100 point scale you really only have 11 percentage points uh of success and that's 90 to 100. and so for me the whole idea was is it are we how are

057we assessing learning and how are we supporting growth in learning and is it truly focused on learning or is it focused on a number and so two of the things that i i immediately changed with my grading policy were all the following so every project that a student that a student did or group did it was a three r's which was reflection revision and resubmission because again the whole idea is growth and support i also shifted to a four point scale not a 100 point scale so that that way if you'll notice that there's there's no zeros there's a one but keep in mind revision reflection revision resubmission because ultimately i wanted all students to be successful and and when you think in terms of the culture of a school i'll never forget that um

058probably about three or four years before i left the classroom i had remember i was in la unified so my numbers the numbers might shock you all so my average class size was 45 and i worked at a school that had a seven class period a day so you can do the math because how many students i had 98 of my students for several years earned uh a letter mark of an a uh and and it was earned it was not like great inflation or giving and so think about what that does to the mindset of a child of which they've been supported and affirmed and they've achieved something because they got the support and they were given the opportunities to continue to work it and work and work until they got better at it

059the analogy i used to use with my students was um when i played football as you worked on a play you worked on a playlist on playing you kept doing it over and over and over again and even when you think you didn't make a mistake the film will tell you where you make a mistake and you do it until it becomes almost second nature the whole idea around learning is how do we continue to grow in that process so that you go over and over and over again i got it now i move on to the next next item so that's part of the reason why i wrote um that um that series and then of course i cite my own personal experiences with that which i would just encourage the community members that

060um that shared their thoughts around it is to keep in mind that my framing of that is based on my lived experience and i recognize that all of us are going to have different experiences that just happens to be my experience around it and i do i know for sure um quite a few school districts are really starting to look at uh reforming their grading practices the largest one in california is doing that is san diego unified they shift it to a four point scale uh and they are going to more of a mastery uh mastery mastery process upgrading which means you have to show a set of standards at a particular point and then you can move on it's similar to uh how you get promoted in the military thank you very much for

061that i really appreciate it again and then the last follow-up i had is you know we're talking about diversity equity and inclusion we've also had some discussions here about equality and i guess the question i would have and this may not be fair because obviously you're going to come in and tell your work to the community but perhaps broadly generally how do you define those different words and are there distinctions between them particularly equity and equality that would those that's a conversation we've had a few times here we'd love to hear your thoughts yeah so i i as as simplistic as possible i i look at equality as treating everybody the same equity is providing access to opportunity to each individual based on an individualized awesome thanks so much kim i really appreciate it thank

062you may i add one quick more one more thing just just again the way just the way my brain works just food for thought for uh the board and even the community member uh in that series and this is a this is another thing just to think about with grading in that series i even should give an example uh of something else that i shifted and and i'm sharing this with you all because i think it's important one of one of the core perspectives that i i maintain um on a regular basis is humility and i recognize that there's always room for growth and when i'm introduced with new information i always process it and look at it does this new information make me a better person as a result of that so for example

063i was not the same teacher in my first year as i was in my second third and so on and so forth and i share that because one of the things i also mentioned in that grading piece was the fact that um averaging um averaging is is not it's not fair it's not equitable um and i even have an example of where on there where it's uh the example is uh which student would you want to pack your parachute student a over the course of five weeks so they got 80 80 80 80 80 or student b where they got 60 60 70 100 100. and if you were to average out those numbers student b would actually have a lower average even though in the last two weeks they scored 100 where student a

064showed no growth and so the whole idea for that and even putting that was something that i learned in the classroom as well was that even averaging isn't necessarily fair because it doesn't account for growth not everybody starts off at the same place at the same time nor learns at the same pace and this goes to the whole idea around equity is how am i how am i engaging individual on individuals on an individual basis and tracking their growth and then now what does that look like in a letter grade and it required a lot more work on my part but in the end i know that i can look in the mirror at night and sleep well knowing that i was supporting all of my students to realize their full potential so again i

065i definitely welcome you all to re read what i wrote um and i welcome any further dialogue around that if anybody would like to have it for sure i appreciate it so much thank you ken thank you mr seaney just just one follow-up ken in the proposal that dr adley produced to us there's four bullets or four paragraphs and one is partner with the community and given what you heard tonight and some of the i guess concerns i guess i would outline them as talk about how you would interact with the community outside of the teachers the administration and of course our students i.e the parents and other members of the broader community so yes thank you i i think it's important and i i'm in full agreement with the community members it's important for

066the community voice to be heard uh and not performatively heard legitimately heard uh and so many of the districts that i have worked with when um logistically when it's been possible we've actually formed a community partnership uh and so we welcome members of the community to be a part of the process of the growth around the work that we're doing as well anyway and several of the districts uh the community partnerships serve as a type of advisory technical working group that from their perspectives they were going to give additional feedback um ideas um and really again thought partnership around uh the opera operationalization of the strategic plan so i think it's great to involve the community again remember my my experience as an educator was la unified which i good luck getting the community involved

067with that when you're thinking in terms of the geographical scope of l.a unified and this is where i think for you all as derion public schools and many of the other school districts that are of comparable size you have a unique uh gift that you can actually involve the community more intimately not only in this type of work but also ensuring that community voices are heard in the process as well so i welcome the dialogue and i actually would encourage uh some degree of participation whatever that may look like as a community partnership and and my final comment on that is that my favorite setup has always been the following so the community partnership is usually a small group of the teachers a small group of the students and then now members of the community

068and that's how you form that community partnership that way you ensure that all of the uh critical voices uh are heard and that their voices are a part of that process thank you mrs ackman so following up on that as a practical matter you're in california most of the time and i think the plan that we've seen lays out a lot of zoom um we all love zoom because we can do this and we all hate zoom because we're tired of it so can you talk a little bit as a practical matter this really is an ingrained community issue i believe and and we only have control over the schools but so how from afar do you get a real feel for what's going on in from california in a small town in connecticut right

069so i during uh when we were on full lockdown i worked with two districts where we did everything on zoom um and and again part of that to your point part of that is that initial norm setting process and even the the vetting process for those that wanted to be in uh the community partnership they just shared thoughts around what their experiences were both as an educator assuming as a learner uh in the community and what their professional roles are and how and of course i again my approach how does your experience as a professional and as a partner what you bring the dialogue that we will have together align with our common goal and purpose which is to uh to see the strategic plan and the core values that have been set by the

070community in the district uh see them to their uh successful fruition so the beauty that we have is that i do have scheduled times to be there in person i i would certainly welcome and i would actually think it would be great for us to be able to specifically plan a time when i'm physically there so that we can all sit down break bread together and engage in dialogue and then perhaps use zoom to bridge the times that i'm not there but again ultimately even with that the whole idea around that is is to empower the community so that uh that you do live in california that when i'm not there the dialogue will continue and the growth will continue i don't want you all to be uh essentially dependent upon me i want to

071be a part of this process and be a part of a thought partnership with all of you thank you mr maroney yes hello mr shelton dennis moroney here so in your in your interview that i saw you you talked a lot about not a lot but you talked you spoke about privilege and what privilege has and and what what influence that has on on discussions of dei and and bias training and so on can you can you and i think not just me but i think a lot of people around the country are still struggling with this this idea of privilege and what it means and and how do we how do we deal with that how do you teach that to 10 11 12 year olds 15 16 year olds to to explain that

072and maybe especially in a community like here where we are very privileged to live in such a place yes so uh and i'm glad you're bringing that up thank you i mean first of all the whole idea around privilege is that my first thing is to recognize that all of us benefit from some type of privilege so i'll give you all i'll give you all an example at my last school they were building a new uh a new wing to the school and they had some members of the community uh as a part of this little focus group uh and so then they revealed their designs to in a faculty meeting and so one one of the privileges that i i have is i'm able-bodied and so me having that awareness it doesn't make me

073a bad person but having that awareness helps frame my prospective understanding of those that don't so i'm sharing this example because when they showed the the artist rendering of what they were going to build my hand was the first hand that went up and i said i know that that that rendering is great and everything i said but what if i'm a wheelchair-bound student how am i going to get in class because it all had stairs they had no ramps and so my whole idea around that is to recognize things that we may have that others don't and use it as an awareness piece to say okay how do i make sure that something i'm saying something i'm doing um is inclusive along those lines so i mean even even with my when i was

074in the classroom my class website i had links to uh every page that was translated in every language that every child uh that i had that was that was spoken in the home and then aligned with my perspective on even just education in general i asked the students that that was their first language i said can you read this and make sure that it's translated correctly and then it effectively communicates to your parents what we're going to be doing in class so the whole idea around privilege is to recognize that we have things that others don't have and use that as an awareness piece not necessarily i don't believe in guilt and shame i i've seen that and i know why that question comes up where it's like you know you should feel bad because

075you have something somebody else had look there's things that that some of us have that we've earned and there's things that some of us have they're just by by design they're they're just we we got lucky um i was for like a share i was fortunate to play college football so i was i was lucky enough to have athletic gifts to be able to do that but that doesn't make me a bad person what it makes me aware of is what about how do i ensure as an educator how do i ensure awareness around uh especially a child's experience that doesn't have the same physical gifts that i have so that they can be fully inclusive and fully participate participatory in their learning experience i have to ask what position did you play i played

076a receiver then um so my my head coach unfortunately passed away uh this past july but he had a battle with cancer uh twice so i played receiver uh then i got switched to defensive back and then i got switched back over to receiver so just so you all know i played at ucla in my head when i was there was uh terry mister yes mrs hochman um i've read your articles on grading and i've seen your videos um to tell you the truth i think in some cases that they're not as radical as what people think we don't do class rank here other than our valedictorians already um so but i guess the question would be those may be your personal opinions i think what the public is looking to hear if you come

077to darien and they have different opinions can you put aside your personal opinions and work within the framework that darian is telling you so if therian comes back and tells you no we love grading more than anything and we're going to grade i think the public's concern that there would be a disconnect there and i think what we need to hear from you is are you able to say you're right that's my personal opinion but i can that i can work within the framework of what you value up into a point of whether you want to take my advice or not yeah i know i agree with you on that i mean i look you know i i have worked with districts where they uh they don't they don't want to shift their grading practices

078especially the numerical part and i i just i always start with the question okay then how might we work together to ensure that every learner is supported to realize our full potential and that's why i shared the example of again my own experience and i'm sure many of us uh i'm gonna go out and live and guess that many of us are within that comparable age demographic uh when we fill out the survey um was the whole idea around if you turn in a paper you turned it in too bad too late gotcha this is your grade move on that i don't associate with learning so even in the context of having whatever grading practices or policies you have in place the whole idea here and especially when it comes to um to equity is

079what are we doing to ensure that every learner is engaged in the right degree of growth to realize their full potential so no my my opinions my opinions are mine and they're they're relevant to my experiences but that's not necessarily uh it's not it would be irresponsible of me for me to do that because in that ultimately to your point ultimately then that's still me going in and asserting what my perspective is on on darien public schools which is not how i operate thank you mrs mccammon mr shelton can you give some examples of um inequities that you've uncovered in districts like darien and how you recommended people address them yes so off the top of my head some of them are around um things like how students are enrolled in uh rigorous academic programs

080what are the policies and practices around that what resources and supports are provided to students that have idps and are receiving special education services uh are those students encouraged to take a more rigorous academic program even if it's just one class um most of the work most of what i've seen with with districts that are comparable in size but not necessarily the same demographic are things like the um punitive programs in place of discipline programs uh around i'm a big believer in restorative practices i think that a lot of students you know the the the whole idea is are we addressing a a symptom or addressing a disease and ultimately the whole idea is to recognize that uh many students especially teenagers they if they lack the the vernacular to communicate what they're thinking how

081they're feeling is going to uh manifest itself in some of their actions and so how do we how do we address the supports and resources necessary to mitigate those actions as a result of them not being able to do that um i think ultimately the the whole idea around all of this is really to just get a better understanding of the lived experiences of the learners and how do we be responsive to those to ensure that the resources supports are in place i'm trying to think of a couple of other examples i could share with you all those are the main ones um i look i can i can i mean i can even share with you i i know several of the high school students in the group they expressed concerns around the fact

082that they did not feel that their voice mattered in some of their class their classes and then i would ask them well tell me tell me more about why you feel that way and it was it was something i honestly for you all it was something even as simple as the teacher only wants us to raise our hand to be able to contribute to class dialogue and i share with the students that you know that's why i love technology because that's how you can ensure that every voice can be heard that's not just strictly from who raises their hand in class we're we're kind of at time mr shelton um any kind of closing remarks you'd like to to make hearing our questions spending some time in our community spending some time with our students

083you you've looked at our strategic plan what um would love to hear your kind of closing remarks on all that yeah i just uh i want to thank you all i thank the board and thank you community members for uh welcoming into your space and and to and for sharing your thoughts um i i welcome any additional dialogue that we may be in a position to have uh hopefully in person and i would just say that you know ultimately again i just to reiterate that my my approach to the work is uh to um align what i know with the needs of the community the values of the community and the values that are set forth in a strategic plan and to support and uplift the community as a whole and support the uh the

084learners uh with my core basis uh again that's how i was in the classrooms how i am now core basis is simply to support um everybody so that they are a better version of themselves and me included as a result of our interactions together and so that every child at the end of the day can say you know what in my schooling experience i felt seen i felt heard and i know i was loved and that's it thank you mr shelton thank you for your time and um for uh working with us this evening i appreciate it thank you ken thank you very much sir appreciate it thank you good luck tonight thank you any comments dr adley before we move to back to public comment uh no other than to say that um i'm

085pleased to present ken here today it's time that we we have to start the work we have to start it somewhere um that's not just picking somebody out of thin air that we've done we've done i would hope that you would uh hope that we would do with your do our homework and a sense of research and follow-up and having feedback from our staff from our kids that someone who they would like to work with i think it would work well with all of our constituents so we're ready to do the work um and to start the difficult work so it's time to do it and it's either with mr shelton are we gonna do it with someone else because i don't think the board is walking away from this charge that our kids are

086waiting for us right um our community is waiting for it we've identified it's time to do it so um i'm very pleased to hear comment or thoughts about mr shelton but one way or the other we're gonna do it so mr c so if i could i didn't want to waste his time but in the proposal you you outlined there are 13 on-site visits as defined in 13 uh remote visits um is it is it 13 distinct visits that you understand it or are they some of these doubled up like half a day is going to spend with the the community have to date with student leadership yeah while these area will double up on some occasions just well actually chris you want to talk about it it'll be 13 days that he's here alive

087so it might not be on separate visits so they could be consecutive days should we be able to move forward with them okay and then mr chairman maybe you can we discussed a little at today's uh finance subcommittee meeting and how this the funding mechanism might occur you or dr adley would want to address that so uh during the october statement of a concept it was noted that this would be a deficit uh run as a deficit at this point either for again for mr shelton or s or some version we're going to need to address in some capacity um uh if if if the board is so inclined to move forward we would be bringing forward a recommendation for a transfer in november okay and then and then just finally just as a matter

088of procedure i mean this seems to be a superintendent cabinet hire if you will administrative hire not a board hire so this was great for transparency understanding you know your candidate but the ultimate decision is going to lie with the administration as i understand who you're going to work with correct well ultimately that's the of tournament no sorry i thought you were going to answer that question and then we'll move to yeah um so ultimately the mechanism of hiring someone is uh is a financial process board approved but look it would be silly of me me representing administration administration to bring in somebody who's not going to work well this is too important to work um mr shelton himself wants to be very inclusive of the board parents all the constituents himself i want whoever

089we're working with or whatever groups are working with to be inclusive too and transparent what's the point of or not uh that's the nature of this particular work that it is inclusive uh so minimally tactically i would like i would i'm not gonna bring anybody in here i don't think the board's gonna like it's gonna resonate with because what is the point in that realistic one i mean that's i leave it like that mrs ackman so this is a new position outside of the budget so the board hires the board appropriates money and the board hires um [Music] it's not an administrative decision and it would be a vote of the board of education um secondly when you say you would bring a transfer within the budget or are we looking for monies outside the

090budget to pay for this currently i've been looking for money inside the budget currently what's currently me well if there was other options available for funding for for these types of things i would certainly pursue them if they've had that opportunity or pursue them after the event if they could do that but that's probably not going to be probably couldn't do that part of it so i think at this point in time you're looking to fund this within the existing budget yeah i'm looking for the urgency to start the work yes okay and then in the october meeting i had requested and i know mrs stein had requested when she was still on the board to be able to see multiple candidates is there any intention to bring forward another candidate or it's if you

091don't take mr shelton we're back to square one i would say that this is our best recommendation based on the people that we have spoken to and followed up with and discuss this so if it's not mr sheldon i'll be back i'll be back to square one in some capacity of rethinking the approach no so i will just say speaking as a board member why i appreciate an hour with mr shelton it's hard just because this is new work and i don't have anyone to compare it to or to ask contrasting questions to or the same comparable questions and and field a different answer so i will just say as an individual board member that's proving difficult for me so i'm not going to bring anybody in front of the board that i don't think

092is that they're going to work with and right now the people that we have discussed followed up with interviewed ourselves i don't see anybody there who's going to do the work the way that we want to do the work or need to do the work here so i start i mean look i'm being honest and it's again i appreciate the transparency of the forum but i'm trying to be direct i find it hard to believe that there's no other dei consultant worth interviewing and that it has nothing to do with whether the professionalism or my feeling on this particular candidate but usually on high level positions or on important work in the district it it feels hard that there's only one person or else you know the the deck of cards false if that is

093where we are that helps kind of form our decisions i think as board members but that's why i requested in october is there anyone else to consider um and if the answer is no there's absolutely nobody else who can do this work well that helps make a decision because i do i am committed to the dei work um so i think i think in and answering your question directly um zachman um i think we'd be back to the people that we have i would i wouldn't exclude the people that we have like some of the groups and organizations in of themselves may be able to come in and do a nice a nice job in some capacity like for instance um the adl coming in and working with the kids in the middle school this

094particular week was very successful but ultimately i wouldn't be bringing it i would be going back to yes they're they're dei consultants out there you are correct in that then i would be going back to square one to looking at other dei consultants i would be i wouldn't be bringing anybody that was seen because i don't think they're gonna i'm not gonna bring you somebody that i don't think has a vision for the workers gonna be able to work with the constituents so i would be going back to relatively square one to look at looking at the consultants who can do the work so i guess if you were so to that point you what you're presenting to the board is that the work has been done the interviews have been done the meetings have

095been done and this is what you're bringing to the board so to go back to to square one you really would be challenged to bring someone back to the board that you feel has the qualifications to work with us on this work as a district when you've come to the conclusion as an administration that this is the person that can help guide us with the work that needs to be done at the district level both of those statements are correct yes okay all right this is mccann so you you touched on it in the beginning alan but you know you talked about coherence but can you take a few more minutes to develop why you specifically would like to keep ken shelton as your consultant why why is it again you touched on the highlights

096but can you review those please it sort of came out through the process a little bit evolved through the process a little bit this is this is i don't want to be continually in this mode of uh reacting to things and uh public relations things regarding this and actually actually you know the actual infants themselves continue and these are just not acceptable so i'd like to be able to do it in a coherent uh a manner um uncoordinated manner someone who's going to have some continuity with this know the district not just come into a program walk away and and work with our different constituents so i think that there's it came out that that we felt that there was value in that again i wouldn't be i wouldn't just mutually exclusively say that these

097other experiences are can't do anything no i wouldn't i would not say that right because on any given time we may engage in a different type of experience for a particular situation or otherwise uh but it just came out that this is going to provide better coherence and continuity and consistency and and i'll honestly transparency mr chairman my apologies i have to go okay thank you mrs meeting i have a kid's school event appreciate it thank you for the questions mrs hoffman um so dr adley you know to that point of working with mr shelton does it exclude as we go through the process in working if we were to work with mr shelton and we go through the process and we look at some of the incidents that happened it doesn't exclude that we

098may bring in the adl or the nccj or other organizations to supplement or help with what we're finding as we go through the process they may help us in programming or education or additional conversations no i think it'd be a bit short-sighted just to to to think that there's no no other person program experience activity that that might supplement complement anything that's taken place i know i try i wouldn't want any of the ones that i have listed uh to say well you listed them before and you didn't hire them as we didn't hire that well yes but for this is a different purpose but there may be opportunities as we go through this process to work with those organizations this is not all exclusive to mr shelton correct as we go through the process

099mr brown thank you mr janine i had two follow-up questions to nasa's the first richard not to put you on the spot you can come back are there other grant opportunities or possibilities or other things to fund this type of work and if you don't know okay but obviously we'd apply if there were of course and then the other question mr chair and uh mr adley is maybe i should have done my homework better but knowing we didn't have action on the calendar tonight i didn't um there was a comment that this is a board hire versus an admin hire could we get some clarification as to where this is where the authority is what the actual um you know what the actual parliamentarian procedure is going to be on this and any clarification around

100that as we move forward i can certainly get clarification there there are times where we do work that is in the budget at least that's the way i see it richard if you want to click bait clarification that the border many times have has updates to and rightly so many of the resources that we use actually we include people we would actually introduce them to you somebody who participated in those workshops i would encourage people to participate this these things these experiences so many of them are familiar names to us but there are other ones that experiences that we may use along the way that are not as familiar perhaps and that's incorporated into the budget this one is just of the nature that it's significant enough that i think we need to have the

101discussion about it i see it as as being approved through the budget process and i'll be happy to get clarification on that so i guess so i appreciate the quick answer i would just ask if you want to you know brief us ahead of the next meeting on that forum like i'd appreciate that yeah i think your your question's important mr brown and we've had some dialogue around this where the board hired uh dr lemon around the strategic plan because it was a board initiative exactly i think like this mrs friend who joins us on a regular basis you know in helping us um mr shelton has been on board previously so i look at it as the continuity of what you want to do from an administrative standpoint with um overview to the board

102and and approval through the budget process but i think we'll get clarity to your question it's a good question mrs mccammon related to that um you know my perusal of the policy catalog shows that we have policies that are clearly uh indicate what we would do for certified or non-certified staff but are not very clear unless marge you tell me i'm wrong but i didn't see anything about this type of situation so we would we don't appear to have a clear policy which means we probably just have to decide what precedent we use um again we have dr lim as you just said dude we have dr lemons who was working directly for us but in the aggregate we have not often voted for consultants correct and i think what we would do and i

103think part of this process what we're doing this evening is to give the administration consensus of where the board is and allowing the board to move forward with the work that we know has to be done mr maroney yeah mr chairman in your opening remarks you referenced that you know this is still our school district and continue to be our school district and i think what i'm hearing from the community is that there's this fear if that's too strong of a word but there's a concern that that this is inviting a trojan horse into the school system and we're going to go away from greeting and do away with what all makes us an excellent school district and i think we need to discuss those fears or concerns from the community and to show and

104tell parents how they can address them if they begin to feel like this is happening i appreciate that mr maroney i think mr shelton and dr adley um did some of that this evening and there's more work to be done around that there's more work to be done in terms of listening to the community members i think mr shelton did a good job of talking about how we bring the community members and the parents into the discussion and i think that's an important follow-up conversation all right should we move to public comment michelle do you want to start with any person yeah sure absolutely all right thank you good evening julie punishal 23 fitch avenue i waited to do my public comment until after i had my chance to hear mr shelton speak and what

105i want to speak to you guys tonight about is that you are here to serve our students i want to repeat that again you're here to serve our students the community the parents community have been very loud and i understand that but i really think the voices you need to listen to are the students we've had six very brave students come up and speak one alumni and i think it's really important you listen to their voices i think to the discussion about dr adley dr adley has taken the time to listen to the students i know he has had many many interviews many meetings and he has spoken to them they are begging you for change have you listened to what they spoke about what is actually happening in the schools it is an unsafe

106environment for them right now i have two very high performing learners i have a daughter who is at clermont mckinney college it's a nine percent acceptance rate and when she got there she was very happy to be in an environment that is a collaborative learning environment that is something i think we need to look at our education system is an extremely high pressure cooker i think if you listened to the parents you would understand and you would hear many many of our students are seeing mental health experts and help and advice and support because of the pressure cooker our students are in i really think you need to listen to this we need to act now they are begging for it now we do not need to delay i feel a lot of what people

107are talking about with their objections is a tactic a tactic to get us to put their brakes on dei and i think it is really important we act now and i really i think if you were to also listen and do the exit interview he talked about if we were to actually do that with our students i think you would be really surprised to hear what the seniors and the recent alumni have to say about their experience at darren high school a lot are not happy they do not feel like it was a pleasant experience they felt like was a pressure cooker where it was very competitive where everybody really strove for those grades and it's very it's a difficult place and i think that's listening to the students doing this dei work will be

108very important to create a much safer better learning environment where everyone feels seen heard and included and feels like they're getting the best education they can so thank you thank you julie for your comments anyone else in the public thank you i'm still krista karns from 45th avenue um i just wanted to say thank you all for uh your thoughtful questions to mr shelton i think he's a one it sounds like a great first step and i think what we're talking about here is a systemic change for a long-held problem like darien has a reputational problem with colleges we are seen as exclusive and exclusive does not mean opposite of inclusive we just we have privilege here we have opportunities that we can give our kids that many many people in this country can't and

109i'm not going to apologize for that and nobody should but i think we need to realize that a not everybody has that and b the excellence that we tout needs to be representative of what the future is is is what the future is and the future is our kids are going to be sitting across from people and asked to work collaboratively in college in their careers and if they don't have the perspectives that they need even if they don't agree with them if they aren't taught what what they need how they need to envision other people's positions they will never be the leaders that we want them to be they will just think that they can call their teacher and get their grade fixed so all this great stuff is kind of interesting to me

110because i know we all want our kids to do the best but teachers are telling me that people are calling and making the you know the difference between a 93 and a 94 is is not the real world are you learning are you collaborating are you making a difference and i think that's the core of dei i think you guys have a triage decision to make i think that this expenditure is for excellence both in the immediate sense to create safety and and confidence that people will be heard when they bring up their their traumas and this is a trauma-informed thing i think that's something else that may come up this is going to be a curriculum thing uh because what are we listening to i my heart was broken open in 10th grade in

111darien high school when i was shown a documentary about the aids quote and if you remember back then this was like it totally blew my mind and changed who i was at my core i'm sure everybody in that classroom didn't have it but my teacher put it out there for me and that allowed me to see the world a little bit differently because it certainly wasn't happening in my school so think about what we need to know because we cannot put a pin in history we cannot put a pin in science we cannot decide that you know civil rights research ended with martin luther king like it's all moving forward and we really need to move forward with it so as you make this expenditure for an immediate purposes as well as the long term

112my kids in elementary school need to start to think these ways earlier be presented with opportunities to do so and so do our parents like it's scary it's uncomfortable but if we are taught how to have those conversations we're going to make more of a difference in everyone's life and we'll be the leaders that we want our dairy and kids to be thanks thank you for your comments anyone else in our audience you mentioned that the budget um was already allocated for this particular expedition uh expenditure um but you could it seemed like the door was open a little bit for future stuff so you know perhaps maybe address that later um if there was you know foreseeable additional budget items for consultants or something like that um and then the other thing i wanted

113to say is that some of the answers i thought were a little bit vague um it was vague on him picking you know the grouping the surveying that type of thing um you know looking at kids uh you know and how to kind of get the equity um on how that data would be collected and how you know there would be more equitable outcomes so those were questions that you know his answers i wasn't um i didn't feel a lot of clarity around thanks thank you michelle we'll move to our friends on zoom if you would like to create during public comments please click the purchase icon at the bottom of your screen next click the race and option the facilitator will identify you please state your name and add us you will have up

114to three minutes to comment gregory grimly you are unmuted and recognized hi greg rambling from 11 blueberry lane um so just a couple comments after listening to the presentation from mr shelton today and having read some of his work and listen to some of the questions from the board yeah i think at this time for me at least i would not be supportive of increasing his involvement in the school system um yeah the process seems rushed and the administration appears to be presenting a take it or leave it approach to what seems like a pretty important decision for the school system you know a contrary to a couple comments that were made i do think that mr shelton's views do come across as fairly radical and a lot of it seems largely consistent with crt

115or critical race theory which i think our community has been pretty clear has no place in our schools and i don't i don't see how he can separate his extreme personal views from the job for which he's a candidate for in addition it doesn't seem possible at least to me that he will be able to understand our school and community culture via zoom and a handful or two of in-person sessions so i think look let's do right by our number one ranked school system in the state and take our time and do this right thank you very much thank you mr grambling susie you are unmuted and recognized we're you're still mood muted susie how about now that's great please go ahead thank you your name is susie flaherty six lake drive i just want

116to echo the sentiments that um the kids need this and i understand that it would have been ideal to have to be presented with another candidate or two um but the kids need this now and um one of the things that we consistently hear from the kids is that they don't feel like they have a voice and they have been sharing their voice with you and they have been saying that they need this so to to deny them that now would send them yet another message that they can talk all they want and we're still going to do what we think we should do secondly i think we really need to be careful about the words that we're using um you know i don't think we need to worry about grading i personally and here's

117a perfect example of me being able to separate my personal views from from the group i personally think his grading system sounds fantastic but i understand that that's that's a threatening thing for a lot of people in town so i'm not i'm not worried about that i don't think he is going to be pushing that because it doesn't work for our community um so i really think we have to be careful about the words we use and the words that we see being put forward tomorrow in social media you know are we going to hear a lot of scary words about you know radical and and racist and and and grading i i really think we need to hear the man as he as he is and what he said um but again i want

118to reiterate the kids need us to act for them now thank you thank you susie suppori you are unmuted and recognized hi um this is clara sartori can you hear me yes clara thank you i live at 161 old kings highway south i'm very glad you're doing this but in watching the presentation tonight i do i wanted to suggest a cup a little more of a partnership between uh mr shelton and someone from the administration um i think that there are a lot of places where he was a little vague as the lady uh previous speakers uh mentioned and i just think it's important to have him have a person from darien from the administration go along with him in what he you know in his interactions at the high school or at the other

119schools um i was a little concerned about the comments relating to grading um simply because i kind of wondered what does that do to the college process what do colleges think if grading systems are very different maybe they're changing everywhere i don't know that um i thought that um most of his comments were reasonable but i do think that on an ongoing basis i hope you're not going to just hire him and then say come back and see us again you know when you have your report i hope it's kind of an ongoing process thanks very much good night thank you clara [Music] anyone else michelle there are no more thank you any further comments dr adams no um well i always say i should change that because some most times i say no but

120i'll say this since you asked me mr chair we're not going to dismantle the school system we're not doing away with all these programs and but any school system will tell you that they i'll say this just just honestly like the grading system for school systems are like the holy grail we're not going like that's not the entry point for this our kids are hurting right um our staff need training around all these issues we have a lot of work to do before we even get even if we didn't want to or think we needed to get to look you could say honestly you could say there's no research for elementary school do we do it like primary school kids kids kindergarten kids and so on doing homework and yet we you've got a homework

121there's no research for that at all but that we're not that's not the entry point for this that's not i'd but i also wouldn't say we've included like any topics being like talked about reflected on our other ways but that's we have just so much work to do in this arena that that's we're not dismantling programs uh well like honestly a lot of this is inflammatory in my opinion okay um and i'm certainly trying i'll also be respectful to members who have different opinions we want to be inclusive with everybody i think there is common ground on on on many of the things that we we need to do and let's work on the common grinder issues that we need to do i appreciate you saying that because i it's amazing how something that's written

122or read is then taken and the conversation starts about changing the grading system that conversation has never occurred at this board table all right throughout the whole course of this the same with other districts eliminating um ap courses and different things like that those conversations are not at this board table so i think that's where we have to be careful with what we pick up and what we insinuate or throw out in the course of the conversation and what the conversation actually is so i appreciate you saying that all right may have a motion to adjourn julie best uh second by mr ceni all those in favor that is unanimous thank you all thank you all in the audience and thank you on zoom